Today– Thursday–the authors of S.B. 1 plan to present it for a vote on the floors of the Senate and Assembly, and things have been heating up around the subject in Sacramento. Leaders held a rally in front of the capitol steps calling for support, saying that “it’s time to get it done!”

But leaders of the local air districts came out in strong opposition to the last-minute amendment, covered by Streetsblog, that would exempt the trucking industry from their oversight. They sent a strongly worded letter in opposition to the bill [PDF] and have been meeting with Senate and Assembly leaders in the lead-up to today’s vote.

What’s terrible and ironic is that in many ways, S.B. 1 is remarkably improved from the version that had been shopped around at the beginning of the session. It appropriately focuses on money—except for that trucking amendment, that is: on where it’s coming from, what it’s going to, and on how to manage and oversee that spending.

Gone are some of the bill’s strange and unrelated provisions, including streamlining of environmental reviews for highway projects, removal of the California Transportation Commission from the California State Transportation Agency umbrella, and reliance on the unstable and unreliable cap-and-trade funds as the only source for public transportation money.

It even replaces the Traffic Congestion Relief Program—which focused on widening and expanding highways—with a new, more balanced program called “Solutions for Congested Corridors Program” to be designed “to achieve a balanced set of transportation, environmental, and community access improvements within highly congested travel corridors throughout the state.”

The amendment now reads that it “would prohibit. . . the requiring of the retirement, replacement, retrofit, or repower of a self-propelled commercial motor vehicle during a specified period,” and adds a caveat that the Air Resources Board should evaluate the impact of these provisions on “state and local clean air efforts to meet state and local clean air goals,” —by 2025.

The California Air Pollution Control Officers Association—which notably represents all of the air districts in the state, not just the ones that tend to be more environmentally activist—did not agree with Air Resources Board executive director Richard Corey’s conclusion that this changed amendment would give them the flexibility they need to do their job. Instead, they wrote, it would:

Impede or preclude an air district’s ability to adopt indirect source rules that may affect trucks, such as at ports, warehouses, railyards, and airports, and

Limit ARB and air district authority to require retrofit control technology regardless of local benefits to public health or even in the case of affordable technological breakthroughs, and

Prevent the South Coast Air Quality Management District from adopting fleet rules that would clean up state and local government fleets to zero and near zero emission levels as quickly as feasible.

The letter concludes, in bold face:

We strongly urge you to delete the trucking exemption, or to further amend Section 18 to make clear that the language does not, in any way, restrict ARB or air district authority.

Here’s a quick rundown of what the bill contains:

MONEY WOULD COME FROM:

A 12-cent-a-gallon increase on gas excise tax

A 20-cent-a-gallon increase in diesel excise tax

An increase in the Vehicle License Fee, ranging from $25 to $175 depending on the value of the vehicle

A new annual $100 fee on electric vehicles starting in 2020

An additional 4 percent increase in sales and use tax on diesel

It also would stabilize gas taxes by eliminating the annual “gas tax swap” readjustment, and index them to inflation so they don’t have to be raised again in the future.

Would require increasing contracts awarded to small, minority-owned, and disabled veteran-owned businesses
Would accelerate repayment of transportation loans to general fund

Would end the Traffic Congestion Relief Program and instead creates e the Solutions for Congested Corridors Program to achieve a balanced set of transportation, environmental, and community access improvements within highly congested travel corridors

Would create an Advance Mitigation program to speed up CEQA issues and protect environmental resources

AND…

Would prohibit requiring the retirement, replacement, retrofit, or repower of a self-propelled commercial motor vehicle

Sorry, you are incorrect. The $52 Billion will indeed be sourced & raised by fuel taxes and vehicle fees.

“The legislation will raise the money to pay for the plan over 10 years. It raises the base gasoline excise tax by 12 cents, creates a transportation improvement fee based on the value of a vehicle and raises diesel excise and sales tax”

Guy Ross

I believe Jeffrey wasn’t addressing the accuracy of the $52bn figure but rather your statement ”The source of the $52 Billion total comes from autos and fuel taxes”.

I don’t know what your $52 billion number refers to. The fuel excise tax takes in 5-6 billion per year. The amount Caltrans spends just on road building and maintenance is 11 billion per year. As you can see, one of these numbers is much higher than the other. It is a myth that fuel taxes are somehow diverted. Far more money is spent on roads than is collected from fuel taxes and vehicle fees.

JustJake

The state of California revenue has increased annually by $36 billion in the last six years. None of this money has gone to roads, please explain.

Local transportation agencies are raising revenue locally, to support local projects. This SB1 Measure is about state-wide taxation and the states road systems as a whole not about individual agencies.

Mike Bare

So your reasoning is to deny local transportation agencies of adequate funding because you *assume* that they’re misusing it? Every city’s/county’s engineers have different problems to solve, and you can’t paint them all with a broad brush.

Many cities in California have benefited from investing in transportation methods that reduce the daily load on aging roads. You can’t just assume that this is a waste of money.

An increase in the gas tax is long, long overdue. Infrastructure maintenance is critically underfunded.

For years, these bills come up & they keep saying they will “fix our roads”. Simply, they don’t. ‘Transportation’ is a vague catch-all term that means lots of things. What it DOESN’T mean is most of the funds will go to road improvements.

The source of the $52 Billion total comes from autos and fuel taxes. Yet, these ‘transportation’ funds end up going to sidewalks, pedestrian improvements, buses, bike lanes, mass transit, bond payments, Lexus Lanes and every other conceivable use other than actually fixing our roads. Just say no. We are being intentionally mislead.

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